March 27, 2009

Ray Stevens Greatest Hits: UK LP and more...

I don't have this particular LP in my possession but I like the picture on the album and I believe it was issued in 1975 or 1976...I see that "Misty" is one of the songs on the LP and that was a single in 1975 and so I'd say the album was released at some point in the mid 1970's. The photo of Ray was a publicity picture for several years. One of the unique traits about Ray happens to be the Clyde ring he often wore. This picture has appeared on various other compilation projects including a massive collection that was issued in 1979 called The Ray Stevens Greatest Hits Collection which has a different album design but the same picture is used. That LP was issued on the Pickwick label. I have not looked at a lot of recent pictures of Ray's hands to see if he still wears the Clyde pinky ring or not. Clyde, of course, is the name of the famous camel in his 1962 hit "Ahab the Arab".

A lot of record labels have released compilation albums on Ray Stevens through the years. It's one of the more puzzling things that I've ever seen. There are at least 40 albums from a wide variety of labels both major and independent that have issued "greatest hits" and "best of" collections on Ray. I say 40...and that's an estimate...there are probably way more than that. The reason for this kind of thing may depend on the label's themselves. Ray recorded for what would be considered now an independent label, Barnaby Records, throughout the majority of the 1970's. 1970-1975 to be exact. Their distribution as I discussed in a previous blog was handled by CBS Records followed by other distributors in 1973. The songs on The Ray Stevens Greatest Hits Collection are as follows...as you can tell by the amount of songs, it was issued as a double album, 2 LP's:

A lot of the songs on that collection, as well as many of the other "hits" collections out there on Ray, contain songs that were never even released as singles. I touched upon this in a previous blog entry. There are quite a few album songs among the 24 tracks I posted above. The funny thing is, though, they all sound like actual hit songs...and I feel that this is due to the repetitious inclusion of many of them on various "greatest hits" projects through the years. It's like a lot of the album songs that have been featured on countless hits collections gain just as much fame and popularity among Ray's fan base as the actual hit singles do. I think that this sort of thing helps create familiarity among the fan-base. For instance, a new fan is introduced to vintage Ray Stevens material by the various hits compilations about there and since a lot of his material is out of print, it's a plus when labels add in non-hits because it gives exposure to songs not typically spotlighted. In 1997 Rhino Records released The Best of Ray Stevens. My copy is about worn-out...but I'm not getting rid of it because it has some good liner notes from Dr. Demento, a DJ who plays novelty songs on a 2 hour radio program. The publicity picture of Ray that I've been writing about in this blog appears in the pages of the liner notes and appears on the back of the CD cover underneath the list of songs and producer credits. 1997 was the 40th anniversary of Ray's first recordings.

Fast-forward to 2001. Varese Sarabande, an independent label that issues out-of-print LP's and songs onto CD, issued a 23 track collection on Ray titled All-Time Greatest Hits. The cover photo is the same one you see here but there's a yellow tint covering the image...it's okay...but I'd prefer they leave the photo the way it appeared on the album above.

The Varese Sarabande CD with the yellow tint over Ray's photo contained 23 songs, with the highlight being a couple of songs that rarely appear on compilation projects done on Ray. First there was the inclusion of his feel-good Top-40 country hit, "Everybody Needs a Rainbow", which I love...and another highlight is "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon", his 1960 single that nearly got him into trouble with King Features Syndicate over his using the Sgt. Preston character without their permission.

Getting back to the pinky ring...

This picture of Ray comes from 1988. He is performing his 1980 single, "Shriner's Convention". There is no pinky ring in this performance...but that doesn't mean he stopped wearing it. But I happen to think the ring was just a piece of jewelry he wore during the 1970's and early 1980's and eventually stopped wearing...maybe it became too tight? Isn't it interesting what topic I eventually end up writing about!?!?

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About Me

I'm a big fan of what's called classic country music. I love the HEE-HAW television program and I like watching vintage cartoons. I have four blogs...the main one is devoted to Ray Stevens. My Ray Stevens blog is written from a fan's perspective. The opinions and expressions discussed in this blog are of my own creation and should not be taken as representation of Ray Stevens and his office staff. I'm simply a dedicated, though opinionated, fan of Ray's who likes discussing his music and career. This fan-created blog page is something that I started when I got fed up with the lack of accurate information about Ray Stevens that was circulating on the internet.

2012

The Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music became available on February 28th; It's an impressive set featuring 9-CD's and a booklet; There are 108 recordings altogether and the booklet gives in-depth detail about each of the songs and their impact on society; Ray covers practically all the major comedy/novelty songs that have been recorded over the last 60 plus years; It's a marvelous collection!!

2014

Ray's memoir, Nashville, is a great book! If you don't have a copy I suggest you purchase one...any fan of Ray Stevens should get this book.

2016

Ray's recording, "Dear America", demonstrates that America is still the greatest country on Earth regardless of internal conflicts and imperfections; A loving tribute to the country and a defiant plea that the country's values and traditions should still continue to be championed and fought for; Excellent recording!

2017

Season One DVD of Ray's television series; It contains the first 13 episodes broadcast on local PBS stations from earlier this year; These episodes originally aired on RFD-TV but they were repeated on PBS stations starting this past January; Some local PBS stations aired all 26 episodes from the RFD run while other local PBS stations aired the first 13 episodes and then began airing the PBS exclusives which became available over the summer months; Future DVD releases are expected.

2017

Season Two of the Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville series; This volume consists of episodes guest starring the likes of Bill Anderson, Con Hunley, Williams and Ree, Leroy Van Dyke, and many more!! A perfect companion to Season One; Each season contains 13 half hour episodes.

2018

The Ray Stevens CabaRay Showroom officially opened to the public on January 18, 2018; This date is signifcant in the career of Ray Stevens in that it's the date he arrived in Nashville in 1962; The facility houses an entire array of entertainment from the main showroom to a piano bar, a gift shop, and it also houses his recording studios for audio and video productions; The upcoming Sixth Season of his PBS television series, CabaRay Nashville, is being taped at the showroom; These episodes represent the first to be taped at the venue.